BOOK LIST:

Love Poetry

Updated: May 1, 2024

Book cover for 10,000 dawns : love poems of
10,000 dawns : love poems of
Goll, Yvan, 1891-1950.
Call Number: 841 G626-3
The poets Yvan and Claire Goll wrote these love poems to one another over thirty years. "10,000 dawns my angel, 10,000 dawns./10,000 times the eye of the sun/Has come to open again our eyelids." -Yvan Goll

Book cover for An anthology of Swahili love poetry. Edited and translated by Jan Knappert.
An anthology of Swahili love poetry. Edited and translated by Jan Knappert.
Knappert, Jan.
Call Number: 896.308 K67-1
This anthology includes poetry in the original Swahili, English translations, and explications of the poems. "O my queen,/proud and glorious/exalted/among beautiful women,/I will cry for you/till the end of my life." -Malikiya

Book cover for The arc of love : an anthology of lesbian love poems
The arc of love : an anthology of lesbian love poems
Call Number: 811.08 A6685
A collection of love poetry by over 80 lesbian poets from around the world. "I ask myself and you, which of our visions will claim us/which will we claim/how will we go on living/how will we touch, what will we know/what will we say to each other." -Adrienne Rich

Book cover for Bleeding hearts : love poems for the nervous & highly strung
Bleeding hearts : love poems for the nervous & highly strung
Call Number: 808.1 B6465
An irreverent, tongue-in-cheek collection of "truly neurotic and tortured love poetry." "Love is a universal migraine/A bright stain on the vision/Blotting out reason." -Robert Graves

Book cover for The city in which I love you : poems
The city in which I love you : poems
Lee, Li-Young, 1957-
Call Number: 811 L4785-1
The passionate title poem in this collection was inspired by the Song of Songs. "At the gates of the city in which I love you,/the sea hauls the sun on its back,/strikes the land, which rebukes it." -Li-Young Lee

Book cover for Cowboy love poetry : verse from the heart of the West
Cowboy love poetry : verse from the heart of the West
Call Number: 811.08 C8745-1
Poems and traditional songs by and about cowboys of the American West. "I'll tell you, pard, it hain't no use/Fer me to try to raise a hand,/When on my heart she's run her brand." -Robert V. Carr

Book cover for Dirty pretty things
Dirty pretty things
Faudet, Michael,
Call Number: 811 F258

Love and relationships are combined in short aphoristic poems which are a tribute to the author's girlfiend.


Book cover for Like the singing coming off the drums : love poems
Like the singing coming off the drums : love poems
Sanchez, Sonia, 1934-
Call Number: 811 S2115-10
Sanchez's steamy and lyrical collection also includes platonic love poems for Ella Fitzgerald, Tupac Shakur, and Gwendolyn Brooks.

Book cover for Love found : 50 classic poems of desire, longing, and devotion
Love found : 50 classic poems of desire, longing, and devotion
Call Number: 808.1 L8965-8

50 poems about love, in all its highs and lows, by 50 great writers, who knew all abou it.


Book cover for Love haiku : Japanese poems of yearning, passion, and remembrance
Love haiku : Japanese poems of yearning, passion, and remembrance
Call Number: 895.2108 L8975-1
Contemporary Japanese authors approach the traditional form alongside masters like Basho. "half of the mountain/dyed by red maples-/one-sided love" -Chiyo-Ni

Book cover for Love poems
Love poems
Giovanni, Nikki.
Call Number: 811 G5115-8
A buoyant, fun, life- and love-embracing collection. "If music is the most universal language/just think of me as one whole note" -Nikki Giovanni

Book cover for Love poems
Love poems
Sexton, Anne, 1928-1974.
Call Number: 811 S518-4 1999
Sexton's poems about married love and adultery are provocative, intense, and written with a storyteller's attention to detail. "We are stripped to the bone/and we swim in tandem and go up and up/the river/the identical river called Mine/and we enter together. No one's alone." -Anne Sexton

Book cover for Love poems from the Japanese
Love poems from the Japanese
Call Number: 895.2108 L8975 2003
Kenneth Rexroth's translations of Japanese poetry from the 8th century to the modern age.

Book cover for Love poems and sonnets of William Shakespeare.
Love poems and sonnets of William Shakespeare.
Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616.
Call Number: 822.33 S6-1
Includes Shakespeare's 154 sonnets, as well as other works like Venus and Adonis.

Book cover for Majestic nights : love poems of Bengali women
Majestic nights : love poems of Bengali women
Call Number: 891.408 M2335
Along with poems of romantic love, this collection also includes a surprising number of poems expressing a darker, more cynical attitude. "The heart is not a tulip/to bloom on its own in answer to summer." -Dilara Hashem

Book cover for Nightingales & pleasure gardens : Turkish love poems
Nightingales & pleasure gardens : Turkish love poems
Call Number: 894.35108 N6885
Includes classical poems by Rumi and poems by sultans and folk poets from the Ottoman Empire as well as poems by contemporary authors. "You are half of an apple, I am the other half;/Day and night, we are one, our hearth and home are one." -Oktay Rifat

Book cover for No bliss like this : five centuries of love poetry by women
No bliss like this : five centuries of love poetry by women
Call Number: 808.1 L9117 2007
Includes poems by women from the 1500s to the present day. "If in that moment we are all we are,/We live enough." -Edith Wharton

Book cover for One true love : a year of love poetry
One true love : a year of love poetry
Call Number: 808.1 O575-9

MIchael Watkins and Katia Vlachos have selected 52 love poems out of the 100 love poems that they sent each other when first in love. 


Book cover for A Rock Against the Wind: African-American Poems and Letters of Love and Passion
A Rock Against the Wind: African-American Poems and Letters of Love and Passion
Call Number: 811.08 R6825

Poems about desire, new love, lost love, and enduring love.


Book cover for Sonnets from the Portuguese, and other poems
Sonnets from the Portuguese, and other poems
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, 1806-1861.
Call Number: 821 B884-11 1992
Written by Browning to her husband in the mid-1800s, these poems and sonnets are enduring classics.

Book cover for Ten poems to open your heart
Ten poems to open your heart
Housden, Roger.
Call Number: 808.1 H842-1
Housden offers discussion and food for thought on ten poems that are both accessible and inspiring. "Love means to look at yourself/The way one looks at distant things/For you are only one thing among many." -Czeslaw Milosz

Book cover for Twenty love poems and a song of despair
Twenty love poems and a song of despair
Neruda, Pablo, 1904-1973.
Call Number: 861 N454-7 1993a
A beloved collection by the Nobel Prize-winning author. "You are mine, mine, woman with sweet lips/and in your life my infinite dreams live." -Pablo Neruda

Book cover for When angels speak of love : poems
When angels speak of love : poems
Hooks, Bell.
Call Number: 811 H784
A collection of poetry by the well-known feminist author and scholar. "Love is/no soldier of fortune/no assassin/on the prowl/stalking unsuspecting hearts." -bell hooks

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